Arrest Made in Washington Killings

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The police in the Woodley Park section of Washington cordoned off the home of Savvas Savopoulos, who was found dead on May 14 along with his wife, 10-year-old son and housekeeper. A suspect was arrested late Thursday.CreditChip Somodevilla/Getty Images

WASHINGTON — On a sunny Sunday afternoon in April, Savvas Savopoulos, a wealthy iron company executive well known to this city’s elite, gathered his family and friends in the backyard of his stately brick home to grill lamb on a spit and celebrate Greek Orthodox Easter. It was, one guest said, “an idyllic day.”

Now that house is a grisly murder scene. Mr. Savopoulos, his wife, 10-year-old son and housekeeper were killed there last week in a case that has transfixed Washington. Early Friday — after days of gruesome details dripped out in the news media, including a report that the family had been held captive and the child tortured — the police said they had arrested a suspect, Daron Wint, 34, who once worked for the iron company.

Mr. Wint, of Lanham, Md., was arrested by members of the Capital Area Regional Fugitive Task Force at 11 p.m. Thursday in Northeast Washington, almost 12 hours after a news conference in which police said they were searching for him in Brooklyn, where he has friends or relatives. He has been charged with first-degree felony murder while armed.

Dave Oney, a spokesman for the United States Marshals Service, said that Mr. Wint was taken into custody during a traffic stop on the 1000 block of Rhode Island Avenue N.E. in Washington. He said that Mr. Wint was a passenger in the car and that several other people riding in the vehicle were also taken into custody, although he did not know if they had been arrested or charged with any crime.

Court records show Mr. Wint has an arrest record in Maryland for offenses including assault. The police here had appealed to the public for help finding him, and had urged Mr. Wint to turn himself in.

Chief Cathy Lanier of the Metropolitan Police told reporters at the midday news conference: “What we can tell you right now is that we do believe there is a connection between this suspect in this case through the business. Right now it does not appear that it was just a random crime.”

The deaths of Mr. Savopoulos, 46; his wife, Amy, 47; their son, Philip; and housekeeper, Veralicia Figueroa, 57, have shocked the nation’s capital since their bodies were found inside the home on the afternoon of May 14.

The family’s house, an art-filled mansion located near embassies in one of the finest neighborhoods in Washington, was set afire, and their blue Porsche 911 was found burned in a church parking lot in Maryland.

The deaths set in motion a police investigation that drew in the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Secret Service. Mayor Muriel Bowser told reporters here that the team had been “working on this case 24/7” to “find the perpetrators of this act of evil.”

Chief Lanier declined Thursday to discuss further details of the case or how the suspect had been identified.

But The Washington Post, citing anonymous law enforcement officials and documents related to the case, reported that the break came after the police matched DNA from Mr. Wint to evidence found on the crust of a Domino’s pizza that had been ordered to the home on the night of May 13. Police believe the victims were being held captive inside, according to The Post.

There was no sign of forced entry at the home, the police said. The authorities have not said much about how the victims were killed, other than that three showed wounds consistent with blunt force or sharp objects. But various news outlets have reported that the victims may have been bound and held captive, and that the boy may have been tortured.

The police have not said whether they know the motive for the killings. But The Post reported that on the morning of May 14, Mr. Savopoulos’s personal assistant dropped off a package containing $40,000 in cash at the home. Hours later, the home was set on fire. By the time firefighters arrived, the cash was gone, as was the Porsche, and the family and housekeeper were dead.

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Mayor Muriel E. Bowser of Washington, and Cathy Lanier, chief of the Metropolitan Police Department, on Thursday identified the suspect in the murder of a household of four last week.Published OnMay 21, 2015CreditImage by Cliff Owen/Associated Press

Mr. Savopoulos was the president and chief executive of American Iron Works, a company that supplies metals to large building projects across the region. He and his wife were active in Washington social and charitable circles. Their son attended the St. Albans School, an all-boys school next to the Washington National Cathedral that has for decades educated sons of the city’s power brokers, and is the alma mater of numerous Rockefellers, Roosevelts, Bushes and Kennedys.

According to the website Zillow.com, the couple’s home, in fashionable Woodley Park, not far from the official residence of the vice president, last sold in 2001 for $2.9 million; the family friend said it had been extensively renovated and was worth far more than that. And, the friend said, the couple owned other homes, including one on Maryland’s Eastern Shore.

Philip Savopoulos was in fourth grade at St. Albans. Friends say he traveled around the country racing go-karts and was home from school, recovering from a concussion, the day before the murders occurred. Parents say the campus has been awash in grief; there have been regular services at the chapel for parents and counselors and psychologists on hand for the students.

The couple also has two teenage daughters, who were away at boarding school at the time of the killings. One is set to graduate from high school soon, a friend said. Funeral services for the family are set for June 1 at Saint Sophia Greek Orthodox Cathedral in Washington, across the street from St. Albans.

In addition to striking a deep nerve in the most elite circles of Washington, the case has also raised soul-searching questions about why, when so many people die violently in impoverished parts of the city, these murders have attracted so much intense news coverage and discussion.

“It’s utterly horrifying and deeply chilling,” said Juleanna Glover, a corporate consultant and onetime aide to prominent Republicans — including former President George W. Bush and former Vice President Dick Cheney — who was acquainted with the couple.

“Those who live in Washington expect in an urban city, in an urban environment, that there will be acts of violence,” she said. “But based on news reports, this appears to be a long-term hostage situation that involved a child. And that’s every mother’s nightmare.”